Local photographer Brett Leigh Dicks is fascinated by urban landscapes. This time his lens has been focused on the humble lunch bar.
By Ara Jansen
Lunch bars by definition are not particularly glamorous places. In Perth, they used to be the place you went when you hankered for a chico roll, chips or something else your cardiologist wouldn’t be thrilled about.
They’re also typically tucked away in suburban, industrial and commercial areas and have been sustaining the work force with no-frills fast food since the 1950s. Today they continue to feed a community of mostly blue-collar workers, reasonably untouched by both gastronomical fashions and architectural trends.
Research on another project led Perth-based photographer Brett Leigh Dicks to Welshpool’s Radium Lunch Bar and somehow, after that, he just kept seeing more and more lunch bars on his travels around the city.
“They are quite unique and they have adapted,” says Brett. “They don’t follow a standard type and tend to do their own thing outside trends. I just fell in love with them.”
The result is a photographic book called Lunch Bars: Exploring Western Australia’s Fast-Food Culture.
“They have such a dodgy reputation, but they are individual” Brett says. “While plenty serve what you’d expect for hot and hearty fare, others have made it all their own, specialising in a particular cuisine, including one place which serves delicious German bratwurst.”
He’s approached each external shot with a stark austerity, without cars and people bustling through the images. It’s a quiet but powerful statement which sits companionably in a decades-deep portfolio which includes photography on decommissioned American prisons, abandoned nuclear missile bases and Aboriginal missions in the WA.
“There were two ways to approach this – bustling or stark. I wanted to do an archaeological investigation to be about the lunch bar rather than the menu or the clientele. I wanted it to be the story of the buildings and by doing that I think I really captured the diversity of the character of the facades.”
He’s also chosen to shoot the frontages and buildings in the bright and harsh full sunlight. Each photo includes a good section of blue sky, which the photographer considers quintessentially West Australian. “Like a lot of the architecture, it’s very WA.”
Brett visited and revisited more than 100 lunch bars while the State was cut off from the rest of the world. Just over half made it into the book. He also got to know some of the owners quite well, and on Saturday mornings often took his 11-year-old son to one
for lunch.
An Australian-American, Brett is based in Fremantle but splits his time with California. Since he has only lived in Perth since the pandemic, the book was a great way to get to know the city better.
“In the US, I loved driving around commercial and industrial areas. I think one of the reasons it resonated was because it was after going through isolation. It was dark times and it offered something a bit whimsical.”
Photographs and copies of the book are available from Brett’s website:
www.brettleighdicks.net